This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present invention, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
As will be appreciated, fluids, such as natural gas and air, have a wide array of uses in industrial and commercial applications. For instance, natural gas may be used to provide power to a range of vehicles, to heat homes during winter, and to operate various consumer appliances, such as ovens or clothes dryers. Further, natural gas may be used to generate electricity for distribution over a power grid, and may be used in the manufacture of an array of products and materials, including glass, steel, and plastics, for example.
In order to meet the demand for natural gas, companies may spend a significant amount of time and resources searching for, extracting, and transporting natural gas. It will be appreciated that natural gas may be produced from oil fields, in which case the gas may be referred to as casinghead gas, or from natural gas fields. As may also be appreciated, transportation of such natural gas, such as through a pipeline from the production site to a consumer, is often facilitated by compression of the gas via a compressor.
One common type of compressor for such applications is the reciprocating compressor. Such reciprocating compressors are positive-displacement devices that generally utilize a crankshaft that is coupled to pistons, via connecting rods and crossheads, to reciprocally drive the pistons and compress a fluid within attached compression cylinders. As may be appreciated by one skilled in the art, natural gas (or some other fluid) is generally introduced into compression chambers of the cylinders through one or more inlet or suction valve assemblies and, following compression, the fluid generally exits the cylinders via one or more outlet or discharge valve assemblies.
Many compressors routinely operate at hundreds of rotations per minute (rpm), and some compressors are designed for operation at even higher levels, such as over one thousand rpm. This operating speed results in the opening and closing of sealing elements within the valve assemblies at a similarly high frequency of hundreds or thousands of times per minute. Due to the rapid cycling of the sealing elements, various components of typical valve assemblies, such as the seat and guard plates and the sealing elements themselves, may experience extensive wear, which may result in failure of the valve assembly and even the compressor in which it is installed. To avoid such failure, a typical, worn valve assembly may need to be refurbished, such as through replacement of the sealing elements and machining of the seat and/or guard plates, or replaced entirely. Of course, such refurbishment or replacement may often be time-consuming and/or costly, and generally results in downtime for a system in which the worn valve assembly was disposed. Consequently, there is a need for a valve assembly that exhibits an increased durability and life expectancy, and that allows for easier, faster, and cheaper maintenance.